EnBW and Eneco invest in FLEXeCHARGE

Danish energy tech startup FLEXeCHARGE has successfully completed a €5 million financing round. The round saw investments from EnBW Ventures and Eneco Ventures – the venture capital arms of major utilities from Germany and the Netherlands, respectively.

According to FLEXeCHARGE, the €5 million boost will enable the company to scale its HARMON-E platform and support charge point operators (CPOs) through the energy transition. In addition to EnBW Ventures and Eneco Ventures, existing investors Greencode Ventures and Vireo Ventures also participated in the round, “reaffirming their confidence in FLEXeCHARGE,” as noted in the EnBW Ventures announcement.

What convinced EnBW and Eneco – both prominent players in the charging sector through EnBW mobility+ and Eneco eMobility – was FLEXeCHARGE’s intelligent load management technology. Unlike typical solutions that offer only on-site load balancing at individual (fast-charging) locations, FLEXeCHARGE enables global load management across multiple sites.

This approach aims to improve grid integration of charging hubs. The goal is to assist operators of fast-charging stations – often faced with high peak loads and costly grid tariffs – as well as fleet depots, “where efficient energy usage and smart charging strategies are critical.”

The solution consists of two key components: a site-based controller named ‘GATEWAY’, which manages local load balancing and cloud connectivity, and the vendor-agnostic HARMON-E cloud platform, responsible for overarching energy and load management. Co-founder and CEO Max Brandt previously presented how the system works during a German edition of electrive LIVE, the platform’s online conference. In essence, operators can consolidate their charging sites into virtual power plants and offer flexibility on the energy market. The solution is already being used by operators such as Electra, Bump and Q8 Benelux.

“We aim to become the leading provider for intelligent energy and grid management,” says Brandt in the latest press release. “Our mission is to help charging infrastructure operators reduce costs and build stable, future-proof charging systems. This funding round allows us to accelerate our progress.”

Pascal Beckers-Jaleta of EnBW New Ventures adds: “For CPOs, targeted control of their charge points will become increasingly crucial in the coming years. This allows them to respond more effectively to changes in the electricity market and generate additional revenue through the sale of flexibility.”

Source: Information via e-mail